Are there Taliban in our green and pleasant land?

Posted by TonyN on 28/09/2009 at 1:00 am The Climate, Uncategorized 1 Response »
Sep 282009

The other day I was talking to a friend who had a serious problem with a large quango that is supposed to look after the countryside. He is unfortunate enough to have a remarkably robust species of lichen on his land that ecologists are interested in, and a Site of Special Scientific Interest has been created to ensure its protection, although there is absolutely no indication that the lichen is in any danger, or is ever likely to be.He needed to do some work in the area concerned and, although there was no question of the lichens being harmed, it was necessary to get permission from the quango. Letters and phone calls got him nowhere, so a site visit was arranged. He had assumed that, as is usually the case, once he met someone face-to-face common sense would prevail and an agreement which accommodated everyones interests would be quickly reached. He is rather proud of his lichens and is keen that they should continue to flourish.

At this stage I should say that the quango is very, very environmental and so is my friend. He moves in environmental circles, does environmental things, and is happily convinced that humans are destroying the planet, which gives him even more environmental things to do. On the other hand, there is a part of him that still takes a very levelheaded view of bureaucracy, activism and extremism.

When I spoke to him he said that the person from the quango and he had spent several hours walking the land, examining, considering and discussing everything. “And did you managed to sort it all out?” I asked. Continue reading »

BBC Newsnight and Obama's inaugural speech: the BBC Trust will decide

Posted by TonyN on 15/09/2009 at 11:22 am Uncategorized 9 Responses »
Sep 152009

Back in February I posted about BBC Newsnight – Warming up President Obama’s inaugural speech?  Aunty’s flagship current affairs magazine programme had taken three isolated phrases out of context from the speech and cobbled them together into what appeared to be a verbatim statement on global warming. This digitally created sound bite had then been used as an introduction to a report by Susan Watts, Newsnight’s Science Editor, which was recorded before the text of the speech became available, and evidently on the assumption that climate change would be a major feature in what the president had to say. In the event no single sentence in the speech, let alone a whole paragraph, was devoted to this subject.

I made a complaint about this and have also posted on various responses that the BBC have given me (here). The most recent one was a letter from the Editorial Complaints Unit (ECU) which I discussed here. Evidently the ECU were comfortable with what Newsnight had done, but perhaps they were unaware of the reaction to what became known as ‘splicegate’ in the great wide world outside their comfortable offices.

A vast number of blogs and web sites all over the world had picked up the story, as well as some of the MSM.  Not least was a site in the US with the quaint name (to British ears) of StinkeyJournalism, which seems to be a pretty fearsome watchdog on journalistic ethics over there. North Americans have a high regard for the BBC, and are shocked when it fails to live up to expectations. Continue reading »

Peter Taylor's CHILL: an environmentalist's very cool look at global warming

Posted by Tonyb on 07/09/2009 at 12:33 pm The Climate 421 Responses »
Sep 072009

Peter Taylor’s CHILL: a Reassessment of Global Warming Theory is really two books in one. The first part covers the science of climate change in exhaustive detail and provides an alternative to the orthodox view. Taylor, who has impeccable green credentials, describes “the technocratic and communalist approach” in a masterly analysis of how we arrived at this point through “a combination of zealotry which somehow has managed to portray the science as unequivocal when it’s not”. The second part covers policy, politics and remedies.

A main theme of the first part of the book is that we take too linear a view of
climate-trend projections, without recognising past patterns and cycles
which could include future cooling. I am comfortable with that notion, as any observer of history is provided with clear evidence that climate oscillates in numerous
cycles of warm and cold periods.

Readers who believe Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, and who consider the IPCC
climate assessments are factual, unbiased and objective, will not like this
book. As Taylor says: “It is clear to me that IPCC has made such a forthright commitment to the standard (Co2 ) policy model, that it has a biased attitude to new data that does not conform to that model.” And:

“It is striking that a small group of men working behind computer screens created a virtual reality in which the future climate became the enemy of mankind. That original cabal was likely innocent of any underhand motivation and genuinely believed mankind faced a threat and that they would sound the alert and potentially stave off disaster. But sociologists will go a little bit further and look at the social environment that pawned the very concepts of the climate game, many of which we take entirely for granted. For example the notion that humanity itself can be under threat or that the planet might need to be saved. These are very recent notions, at least from a societal perspective, and do not bear closer scientific scrutiny. “

This book is a breath of fresh air in pointing out the numerous contradictions in the orthodox climate science camps that believe themselves uniquely exempt to the notion that they should actually prove their scientific hypotheses Continue reading »

© 2011 Harmless Sky Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha